Judge rules Kentucky man in cockfighting case asked witness to lie, revokes bond

A man charged in a Kentucky cockfighting case tried to get a witness to lie, a judge has ruled.

Oakley D. “Whitey” Hatfield, of Laurel County, had been free on bond, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Hanly A. Ingram found that Hatfield had violated his release conditions and ordered him jailed until trial.

Hatfield asked a witness to lie for his girlfriend, Jacklyn Johnson, and say she wasn’t regularly involved in cockfighting when in fact the witness said Johnson was, according to the ruling.

“His intent was to secure testimony known to be false and favorable to his girlfriend, Johnson,” Ingram said in the order. “Attempting to procure testimony known to be false is certainly corrupt.”

Ingram also placed Johnson, a former deputy with the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office who is charged in the case, on home incarceration with GPS monitoring until the trial.

Ingram entered written findings on detaining Hatfield earlier this week.

The trial is scheduled in June.

Hatfield and Johnson are charged with conspiracy to sponsor and exhibit roosters in an animal fighting venture, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and with attending a cockfight.

They were indicted after Kentucky State Police raided a cockfight at the Bald Rock Chicken Pit in rural Laurel County in July 2021.

There were about 80 people that night at the venue, which had stadium-style seating, a central fighting pit and side pits, a concession area and a station for sharpening the metal gaffs attached to roosters’ legs during fights, according to court records.

State police acted on a complaint from Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, which has documented cockfighting in Kentucky and pushed for investigations.

Federal authorities have described cockfighting as a “barbaric” form of animal cruelty that often leaves birds maimed or dead.

An FBI agent said a woman told him in late March about Hatfield’s effort to get her to lie. That led to the complaint that Hatfield and Johnson had violated their bond, and a hearing before Ingram.

The woman said she had known Johnson much of her life, had been to cockfights at the Bald Rock pit a number of times, and was there the night of the raid.

The woman told the FBI agent that Johnson was involved in several facets of the cockfighting operation, including collecting entry fees, weighing roosters to match them for fights and tracking fight results, according to the affidavit.

But when Hatfield and Johnson came to the restaurant where she works a few weeks ago, Hatfield asked if she would testify that Johnson “hardly ever done it,” and “only did it that one night” of the raid, the woman testified.

The woman testified she told Hatfield she wouldn’t lie for anyone, according to Ingram’s order.

Hatfield and Johnson seemed mad about her response, and wouldn’t acknowledge her the next time they were in the restaurant, the woman said.

Ingram said defense attorneys for Hatfield and Johnson argued that the exchange was a “friendly and comfortable conversation” among friends.

But Ingram said Hatfield intended to obstruct justice.

Hatfield and Johnson were charged as part of a larger federal effort to crack down on cockfighting in Kentucky.

Most have pleaded guilty.

More than a dozen people associated with cockfighting pits in Clay, Laurel and Pike counties and another one on the Nicholas-Fleming County line have been sentenced to jail, home detention or probation, according to a release from U.S. Attorney Carlton S. Shier IV.

In the latest sentences, Jerrard McVey, 48, and Linda McVey, 42, of Carlisle, were sentenced this week to a year and a day in jail for conspiring to carry out cockfighting at the Valley, a pit on the line of Nicholas and Fleming counties, according to a release.

Timothy Sizemore, 43, of Manchester, received one of the longest sentences, two years and two months in prison, for his role in running the Riverside cockfighting pit in Clay County and the Blackberry pit in Pike County.

The owner of the Clay County pit, a former teacher and coach in the county named Millard Oscar Hubbard, 73, was sentenced to a year and a day in jail and fined $95,000.

Cockfighting is illegal nationally but has been common in the state. Animal-welfare groups have charged that Kentucky is a hub for illegal trafficking in fighting roosters.